News Flash: Richard Lazarus to be Executive Director of Deepwater Horizon Team

The co-chairs of the bipartisan National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling have selected a highly regarded Georgetown University law professor to serve as the commission’s executive director.

Richard Lazarus, the Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., Professor of Law at Georgetown, will lead the staff of the commission and work at the direction of co-chairs – former two-term Florida Governor and former U.S. Senator Bob Graham and former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency William K. Reilly – and the other commission members. Lazarus specializes in environmental law and has participated in 40 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. For the past three summers, he has co-taught a course on the history of the Supreme Court of the United States with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Professor Lazarus worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, both in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1979-83) and the Solicitor General’s Office (1986-89), where he was Assistant to the Solicitor General. He also serves as Faculty Director of the Supreme Court Institute. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and earned a B.S. in chemistry and a B.A. in economics at the University of Illinois.

Richard is one of the country’s leading environmental law professors and, unlike some academics, very well-grounded and pragmatic. DOE has made a very smart selection.